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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/30121713">everything is blue</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iolaire02/pseuds/Iolaire02'>Iolaire02</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Shadowhunters (TV), The Shadowhunter Chronicles - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Accidental Baby Acquisition, Alternate Universe - This World Inverted (Shadowhunters TV), Gen, I think this counts, I've always wanted to use that tag, No Dialogue, Not Beta Read, Post-Episode: s01e10 This World Inverted, also please note that the Malec is super super background and not the point of this</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-16 01:54:51</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,710</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/30121713</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iolaire02/pseuds/Iolaire02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Nine months after Magnus crashed the party Alec was throwing at the Institute, Alec found something strange in an alley.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>background Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood - Relationship</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>51</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>everything is blue</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This has been sitting on my laptop for a few days and I decided that I'm not going to be able to add anything to it, so here you go. Some things to know are that this takes place entirely in the This World Inverted universe - ie: no Shadowhunters. And, at the beginning of this fic, Alec is unaware of the Shadow World and Magnus' place in it.</p><p>Title is from Colors by Halsey.</p><p>Enjoy, and let me know what you think!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Alec fingered the smooth metal band resting in the folds of his jacket pocket and hoped that Magnus would say yes.</p><p>Normally, he would’ve taken a taxi to Magnus’ place, but Alec had chosen to walk instead. He wanted time to collect his thoughts. He’d known Magnus for more than nine months, now, and he’d wanted to propose by month four. But Alec was one for meticulous planning – always had been. And he and Magnus had been taking it slow: they had been ever since they’d met that night that Magnus crashed the party Alec had organized. Alec would have been more than happy to rush into things, as he tended to, but there was just something about Magnus. It was like he’d known, from the moment they’d met, that he and Magnus were meant to be together. And, sure, maybe that was ridiculous; maybe it was <em>insane, </em>but Alec wanted Magnus.</p><p>Really, the only reason he’d gone as slow as he had had been because Magnus was so tentative. He had been reluctant, almost, to jump right into things, and Alec thought – in hindsight, of course – that it was probably for the best that they’d gone as slow as they had. None of Alec’s previous relationships had gone as well as the one he and Magnus had created, and Alec had certainly never wanted to propose to anyone before.</p><p>But it was <em>Magnus. </em>It was Magnus, and Alec had gone and fallen head over heels in love with him when they’d only known each other for four months, and even if Alec had been ready to marry Magnus then, Magnus had still been cautious; even now, he remained more tentative than Alec thought he normally was, but Alec had been more than patient, in his opinion.</p><p>The ring in his pocket was smooth against his fingertips. It was a simple band, and understated in its beauty. It reminded Alec of Magnus, who was all dark colors and restrained grace. He was as gorgeous as he was secretive, but Alec didn’t mind. He would prefer going into his proposal knowing everything there was to know about Magnus, but he knew that none of Magnus’ secrets could make Alec love him any less. None of his secrets would make Alec want to <em>marry </em>Magnus any less.</p><p>A soft whimper dragged Alec’s attention away from his thoughts, and he turned his head towards the sound, wondering where it had come from.</p><p>There was an alley to his left, and now that he was looking at it he wondered how he hadn’t noticed it before. He may have been lost in his thoughts, but Alec prided himself on how observant he was – unlike Jace – and so it was strange that he had just now realized that there was a gaping black hole that was the mouth of the alley right beside him.</p><p>There was another whimper, and Alec frowned. Unless he was suddenly experiencing some sort of auditory hallucination – which was unlikely – the cry had come from inside the alley. And – Alec could remember the sounds that Max and Izzy would make when they were babies, no matter how long ago it had been – it sounded like a child. But who would leave a child in a dirty, potentially rat-infested alley in New York City?</p><p>Alec supposed that he didn’t know for sure that there was actually a kid there, and maybe its mother was with it. He couldn’t pretend that he knew anything about the situation, other than the fact that there was something that sounded like a baby making pitiful noises from where it was located. Which was in a dark alley. He couldn’t seem to get over the whole alley bit.</p><p>Alec sighed. He supposed that Magnus wouldn’t be too upset if he was a little late. And if he was, Alec would just explain what he’d heard – or what he’d thought he’d heard – and everything would be just fine. They would go on with their day, and then Alec would propose in an appropriately flowery and romantic moment, and Magnus would say yes, and they’d get married and love each other until they died.</p><p>He tossed a quick glance over his shoulder before stepping into the alleyway, but no one was paying him any attention. It was darker than he’d thought it would be, especially given how sunny it was out – when he looked back at the mouth of the alley, as though reassuring himself that it was still there, he felt a little ridiculous: he wasn’t Lucy or any of the other Pevensies, and he wasn’t going to get lost in a closet. Wardrobe. Whatever.</p><p>Regardless, though, it was comforting to see the bustling streets and bright daylight that was right behind him, waiting for him to rejoin it just as soon as he found out what was up with the maybe-baby. He shivered slightly; the alley was colder than the street had been, and it was almost eerily silent, save for the sound of the baby’s cries. Alec pulled his phone out of his pocket and turned on the flashlight, but the darkness only swallowed it. He didn’t bother to put it away though, because it was more comforting to be wandering around in dark places with a light that didn’t really help but also kind of made it seem slightly less dark than it had been than without one.</p><p>The baby’s cries were getting louder, and Alec shuffled forward, not wanting to accidentally trip over or step on a small child. He was becoming more and more convinced that the only living things in this alley were him and the baby he had yet to find. It was too eerily still – and there was a stale sort of lifelessness in the air – to be supporting any other life forms. Alec couldn’t even hear the scrabbling little feet of the rats he knew thrived in places like this, and though there had been a faint breeze back on the streets the alley seemed to swallow any whistling the wind might have done. The only things he could hear were the baby’s wails; he couldn’t hear anything else – not even his own footsteps or the sound of his breath. Even his thundering heart seemed to have learned to whisper.</p><p>Somehow, despite the darkness swallowing him, it seemed that as he drew nearer to the baby’s cries his vision grew sharper. It was still pitch-black, but soon enough Alec was able to see his hand in front of his face; then the narrow walls of the alley, which seemed to stretch on forever; then, at his feet, which had finally come into view, the baby itself. It was perhaps the brightest thing in the passage, as though it had some sort of light that was bright enough to beat back the blackness that subsumed everything else.</p><p>Alec knelt down beside the baby, who was staring up at him, wide-eyed. It had stopped crying, and Alec reached down to pick it up. There was no one else around – and no evidence that anyone might be coming back – and the baby was swaddled in a fuzzy yellow towel.</p><p><em>How strange, </em>Alec thought: the darkness receded the moment he cradled the baby to his chest. It was a slow process, almost as though the endarkened alley didn’t much want to draw attention to itself – though Alec couldn’t see how it would when he had been blind to it before hearing the pitiful cries – but the blackness that seemed to shadow everything around him all the way to the place where the alley and the street intersected gradually withdrew, fading from shadows too deep to see through to a color not unlike the world at nighttime to a monochromatic grayscale, which slipped inexorably towards the sort of lightness that marked the moments before dawn.</p><p>Finally, the light-to-dark ratio seemed to settle comfortably within the range that was standard for alleys during the day. The child was quiet where it lay warm and solid against Alec’s chest, and he could hear his breathing again, and the scurrying feet of rats. It was almost as though the noiselessness had disappeared alongside the unnatural darkness, and whatever the reason for the conundrum, Alec was glad of it. Such eerie darkness and soundlessness must have been at least part of the reason for the baby’s tears, though Alec had no doubt that some of the blame lay with whoever had decided it was a good idea to leave a <em>baby</em> in an <em>alley.</em></p><p>Absently, Alec smoothed the child’s hair down. He remembered doing something similar to Izzy – and, later on, Max – when she was very little. Even as young as Alec had been at the time, he had been able to intuit that long, slow stroking was soothing for children, and he had used the method on his siblings even as they grew older. Alec knew that no one was too old to be comforted, and certainly no one was too young for such things, so he kept up his steady stroking and shifted the baby into a more comfortable position.</p><p>He froze. There had been, for a brief moment as he readjusted the child, a flash of color. But it was gone, now. Alec frowned, wondering where the flash had come from when the walls on either side of him were a bland, stony gray. He shifted the child again, and it snuffled before shoving its face further into his chest. There had been another flash of that color as he did so, and Alec looked down, wondering if he’d somehow missed the fact that the towel wrapped around the baby was a color other than sunny yellow.</p><p>But it wasn’t the towel that was responsible for the colorful flashes Alec had been seeing. It was exactly the same shade of cheerful that Alec had thought it was when he’d first lifted the child up. No, it was nothing so simple as a brightly colored towel.</p><p>It was the <em>child</em> who was responsible for the color showing up in Alec’s periphery each time he moved it. Alec manfully didn’t shout, and his hold on the baby never wavered, despite the fact that it was bright blue.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Alec calls Magnus, who tells him (finally) about the Shadow World. They decide to take care of the baby, who ends up being named Max (because it is Max - I even stole the yellow blanket he had in "Born to Endless Night"). Alec proposes, they get married, everyone lives happily ever after, the end.</p><p>(Also, for anyone who's curious, Max is a result of the demon that followed Clary into the world, and other than Max's conception their presence didn't really disrupt anything because I like happy endings.)</p><p>Thanks for reading!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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